Wednesday, April 21, 2010

A House, a Car, and a Few Secrets

Ramona here, and a few weeks ago, I finished my next book for Love Inspired Suspense. I’m still a little giddy about that, and I can’t wait until its release next April. House of Secrets will be my fifth book for LIS, and in it, I get to celebrate one of my dream cars: a 1968 Corvette Roadster.

This emerald green beauty belongs to my heroine, June, and is almost as much of a character as she is. A gift from her late husband, the car represents some of the key elements in their relationship—sacrifice and endurance as well as a few unexpected quirks under the hood. And like all great mystery characters, it’s in for a few troubling times before the story is finished.

The “house” of the title also holds a few unexpected surprises. Based loosely on the Chenault House in Decatur, Alabama, the house was built in the early 1900s and renovated twice.

I had a lot of fun treating the house as if it were a jigsaw puzzle. Around every corner lies a new secret, a new piece of the puzzle, including one that opens the door on a murder almost 25 years old.

One of my joys as a writer is taking pieces and parts of my own world and turning them into fictional wonders. A small town I love becomes the birthplace of a hero. A trail I love to hike turns into a frightful murder scene. A beloved car becomes a idiosyncratic “character”. . . and future crime scene . . .

Ah, but I’ll save that “secret” for later. In the meantime, I’m working on another book, and I have to go bury a body in a basement of my favorite restaurant . . .